Chapter 2
Suvan only half listened to the simplified presentation of the anomaly’s creation and ensuing chaos as he tracked the lingering consequences of the hijacking and the interval spent adrift.
With the containment unit no longer draining power, he’d already restored most of the ship’s primary systems, prioritized by the captain with what seemed like unwarranted input from the blonde cruise director.
Hot tub refill? Entertainment library reboot? Expedited synthesis of something called chocolate?
Maybe he should’ve told them how close they’d come to blowing the engines.
In the midst of the crisis, he’d kept the exact probabilities to himself. Having served with Nehivar for lightyears, he knew the captain’s impatience with maybes.
And maybe saying it aloud would’ve made it too real.
There’d been a time—approximately right before this ill-fated speed-dating cruise had launched—when he would’ve scoffed at the concept of manifesting a reality. No one—not even everyone together—could imagine a force into being.
Ships did not traverse space on the power of wishes.
But at the end of the last duty cycle, he’d watched the refractory crystalline structure of the capacitorus empty and darken, despite all his engineering expertise and faultless fabrication.
He’d been left incredulous and alone in the engine module while everyone else was at the recital in the Starlit Salon—and the quantum anomaly had metamorphosed into…
He was not even going to think what the ship’s owner had called it.
Because that was impossible.
Love was not a fundamental particle or an atomic element, as Evens suggested with essentially no corroborating data. Certainly not a universal law. Love wasn’t a power. Just a marketing scheme for a devious agency exploiting delusional patrons.
Not that it mattered to him. Now that he had power back, he would let the rest of them argue the metaphysics of the resonark until the sputtering end of spacetime while he did what he’d always done: get the ship where it was supposed to go with life support functionally intact.
And apparently help restore chocolate reserves.
When he grumbled to himself, Lub replied with shrill chitters. He slapped his chest and the goblhob leaped from top of the dormant capacitorus into his arms. Lub’s unwieldy bulk knocked him sideways a step as its long claws and fangs snagged in his uniform to grab hold. But the contact was…good.
Not because he needed contact, but because it was a sign that everything was back on track.
Lub had tried to warn them about the ghost in the machine. Goblhobs were uniquely attuned to energy fluctuations, their various spines bristling in response to the slightest variations in load-flow that might indicate a larf infestation.
Worse than the plasteel-chewing vermin? A random idiopathic flux that had apparently infected the otherwise skilled and proficient crew with the urge to date and mate and…worse.
Love.
Suvan grumbled again as he disconnected the long conduits from the capacitorus, like decapitating a mighty beast. He wouldn’t dismantle the device entirely. Might need it again if the captain came to his senses.
If not…
With a goblhob propped on his shoulder, it was hard to imitate an Earther shrug—even though Suvan appreciated the dismissive bordering on disdainful physicality of the gesture. Because down here alone in the belly of the ship, none of that starlit silliness could touch him.
+ + +
If he hadn’t been alone, if he’d had a bare minimum engineering staff, he would’ve completed all the checks and restarts already.
But this cruise was only supposed to be three sunsets worth of romantical ridiculousness, so there’d been no need for extra technicians besides himself and deck tech Griiek with her four adequately competent Monbrakkan arms.
Not that he’d ever served with a full engineering department. So he would get this work done by himself. Eventually.
Captain Nehivar had assured him he’d have the same autonomy—and seclusion—on this cruise, which had been intended only as a stopgap after their long-haul freighter contract had gone up in literal smoke.
But that promise had already been broken several times with various members of the crew invading his domain while working together to contain the anomaly.
Which they had now set free for some larf-licking reason.
Just because their joint delusion had led to them all wishing—
“Excuse me? Chief Adrakh?”
As Suvan whirled around, Lub screamed and launched itself to the top of the capacitorus, long nails screeching against the hexagonal facets. The bobbing light of its larf lure was visible for a few bounds before disappearing into the dark.
Goblhobs were ferocious hunters, but they didn’t like to be sneaked up on.
Neither did Suvan.
The Earther female stood a half-step within the engine module doorway, as if uncertain of her welcome. Because no one was welcome here.
“Engines are closed,” he snarled. “Passengers prohibited.”
He knew she was a passenger because he knew all the crew by sight and scent. And this one…
She was shorter than him, which meant petite by Earther standards, although her hair seemed determined to compensate for the missing mass.
Draped over her shoulders asymmetrically, the thick, multi-cabled braids followed no discernible pattern.
The textured waves caught the glow of sensor lights, glinting unpredictably.
Like poorly routed and unshielded fiber optics—except made of bronze, a middling conductor at best.
A few loose locks had gone off on their own trajectory to frame her rounded face. The rest of her too belied some alien organic geometry, every contour a deviation from coherence and efficiency. Nothing like his sleek, linear engines.
On a power diagnostic readout, he’d flag such curves as a hazardous overload and cascade.
Requiring an immediate hands-on inspection.
The unexpected sensory haze knocked him back a step, as if a dozen Lubs had launched into his chest. His stumbling heel clipped an untethered cart, jolting a flux spanner to the deck followed by all the bolts he’d removed from the capacitorus.
The metallic clatter broke her stillness; no doubt she’d been shocked at his belligerence. Her brown eyes went even rounder than her cheeks and body, but instead of fleeing his careless chaos, she bustled entirely into his domain.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” She whisked around the disconnected conduit with a sinusoidal twist of her hip and crouched down in front of him. “Here. Let me help you—”
In disbelief, he glared down at those heavy braids, almost brushing his thighs. He’d seen more logical cable management in derelict shipyards.
His fingers twitched to set them right.
And if in the process he had to unravel them first, breathing too much of her scent, like a shimmering charge, ion-sweet and electrifying…
Unacceptable. “You did not frighten me,” he snapped, stepping back again to avoid her. “And I do not require your help.”
She smiled. “That’s good. Because I require your help. Although I admit, you are frightening me a little.”
Then why wasn’t she leaving?
Another retreating step, and his boot came down on one of the large bolts. It rolled under him.
He could’ve braced himself on the cart. It was right there. Instead, his hand went to her shoulder at the same moment she reached for his wrist to steady him.
For an instant, they stared at each other.
With a shriek, Lub launched itself out of the shadows.
Suvan blocked the goblhob before it could impact with the Earther female, taking the blow of claws and fangs and stubby little horns.
He turned to find her rising like a short, round warrior with the spanner hefted high—
“No!” He half-spun away, tucking Lub under his elbow, although the squirming of the squat, muscular body was harder to contain than a quantum anomaly. “Don’t mind her. She’s not a significant threat.”
“Really? Just insignificant?” The Earther peered at Lub. “She looks like a menace. What is she?”
“It’s not a she. And I wasn’t talking to you.”
After a moment, she laughed, setting the spanner aside.
Slowly, she spread her hands. “Okay then. Shall we try the introductions again? I’m Mariah.
Who is this lovely creature?” Even more slowly, she turned one hand upward in offering.
“I see you have a bioluminescent lure. So pretty with that sunny little light. Does that mean you have stronger senses than sight?” Her own wide brown eyes were bright with curiosity.
“We probably startled you with all that noise. Or maybe I smell weird?”
The lilting cadence of her voice was like the weaving of her braid—the croon a soft ensnaring.
And her hand… Her grasp had been surprisingly strong, but her fingertips even softer against his unprotected inner wrist.
If he checked, would her scent be imprinted on his skin?
Suvan tightened his grip on Lub, like a shield. “Goblhobs see well enough in low-light situations. And they don’t like to be touched.”
The Earther female—Mariah; saying her name would be all lips and breath and a middle growl—let her hand fall.
As did the liveliness of her expression.
The IDA handbook on Earthers, which the crew had read as part of their onboarding, discussed various species-specific facial expressions and bodily gestures.
Some were quite restrained and indirect.
Nothing about Mariah was subtle.
And he had hurt her. From the way her hand tightened, he suspected she’d been poked by the quill-scales on the back of his wrist. Considering he’d been slightly startled by her appearance when she grabbed him, that was…not good.
He set Lub on the tool cart. “Stay,” he ordered.
He spun back to Mariah. “Come with me.” His voice was harsher than with Lub, but he could not modulate it. Not with her scent wreathing him.
Finally, too late, she took a step back. “I shouldn’t have… I was wrong, so I’ll go.”